My best of the West End: Matilda, Aladdin, Five Guys Named Moe

The West End is saturated with a cornucopia of musicals, plays and extraordinary theatrical pieces – it’s not always easy to know what to choose and often tempting to want to see it all! If you’re anything like me, that is! So – Break A Leg are going to try to make that choice easier by bringing you a weekly bulletin of offers, deals and opinions. So, step inside our short guide to the pick of What’s On in the West End this week!

West End hit Matilda plays at the Cambridge Theatre; a new West End cast has just been announced and its exceptionally critically acclaimed:

Get all social media for MATILDA & its cast on www.stagefaves.com

‘Writer Dennis Kelly and composer and lyricist Tim Minchin go to the top of the class with this anarchically joyous, gleefully nasty and ingenious musical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s story’ – The Observer

If you love the story in book form or you’ve seen the film, you’ll love this brilliant adaptation – it’s pure theatrical gold!

Aladdin is set in the town of Agrabah where Princess Jasmine is unhappy with her father, The Sultan’s desire to find her a royal groom. Jafar, the power-hungry Grand Vizier is however, plotting to take over the throne. Jasmine sneaks out of the palace and meets Aladdin, a charming street urchin and reformed thief. When they are found out, Aladdin is sentenced for execution. Jafar, however saves him and orders him to fetch a lamp from the Cave of Wonders…. but when there is a lamp, there is also a Genie! Aladdin is transformed into Prince Ali in attempt to Jasmine’s heart and prevent Jafar’s evil plans.

A major new production of the smash-hit West End and Broadway musical swings into the new Marble Arch Theatre. Nomax is single, broke and drinking his sorrows away when five guys named Moe – Big Moe, Little Moe, Eat Moe, Know Moe and Four-Eyed Moe – appear out of nowhere to help him straighten out and sing and dance his way to love! Featuring the hits of original jazz king Louis Jordan, including Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t My Baby, Early In The Morning, Choo Choo Ch’Boogie and, Saturday Night Fish Fry, Five Guys Named Moe is a theatrical experience like no other!

In The Woman in Black, junior solicitor Arthur Kipps journeys to the funeral of a client, Mrs Alice Drablow where he sees a young woman with a wasted face, dressed all in black, standing in the churchyard. Confused by the villagers’ reluctance to speak of The Woman in Black, Kipps goes to Mrs. Drablow’s former home Eel Marsh House, a building in the middle of a marsh, cut off from the mainland at high tide. While sorting through her papers he finds a box of letters, and ultimately discovers, to his own terrible cost, the dreadful secret of the Woman in Black.

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Helen McWilliams is a Midlands-based reviewer, but is happy travelling anywhere and everywhere to pursue her love of the theatre. Since 2013, she has been combining her passions for writing and theatre in her Break A Leg Review site. She also enjoys interviewing actors, writers and other professionals from the business. Helen tweets at @breakalegreview.

Related

Helen McWilliams is a Midlands-based reviewer, but is happy travelling anywhere and everywhere to pursue her love of the theatre. Since 2013, she has been combining her passions for writing and theatre in her Break A Leg Review site. She also enjoys interviewing actors, writers and other professionals from the business. Helen tweets at @breakalegreview.